I love this picture as it captures the innocence of the children as well as the chaos of four kids together in one room…the bouncy dog, the Curious George jack-in-the-box, a shopping cart, a baby stroller and the favorite “toy” of both Belén and Crew, the flashlight, all entertained with children.

Sage and my attempt at adult conversation was fragmented leaving us to conclude we never aspire to have four children under five. I guess in that situation you just have to embrace the chaos.

I am still on my July bloggy break (kind of) but I have been posting at a few other sites.

Starting now, I am the Traveling Mom with Toddlers at TravelingMom.com and today was my first post.

Last week I guest posted about “Transitions” on Shaken But Not Blurred while Alicia is spending time with her tiny baby boy.

Way back at the beginning of the month, I was a guest poster on a peek inside the fishbowl talking about A Melody of Twos: Two Girls Two Years Apart.

One thing Andy and I virtually gave up when having kids was an ability to workout together. It’s not like we exercised every day together pre-kids but every so often, we would go for a run or dust off our mountain or road bikes and ride, or whatever we were in the mood for. This is something we definitely took for granted at the time and now in our current situation miss.

There is something about sweating together that really does bring people closer together and I mean that with no hidden dirty message. When you exercise with someone, the conversation is just a little different than if you are sitting across the table from them at a restaurant and silence is perfectly acceptable as all of your energy may well be needed to pump blood through your body at a faster than normal rate.

So ever since the day two weeks ago when we hatched a plan for both of us, together, to go mountain biking with my sister, Anna, and her husband, Derik, we have been like two little kids giddy with excitement. I didn’t stop to think about how hard the excursion was going to be physically because I was just so darned excited to do it.

I am a firm believer that baby giggles are quite simply the cutest thing ever.  If you don’t smile when a baby giggles, I think your heart is partially made of stone.

One of the unexpected awesome perks to having two girls is how fun it is to say, “Are the girls ready?”, “Can you get the girls?”, “Did the girls have fun?”, “What are the girls doing?”. For some reason “the girls” has a certain ring to it that “the kids” or “the children” just doesn’t [...]

We are just plucking along over here at the Hoobing household enjoying the heck out of July. I mean seriously, a smiley baby, entertaining toddler, nice weather, no work, the Tour de France, BBQs, a backyard fire pit, an ability to drink wine again, a new book by George R. R. Martin and workouts finally feeling great…does it really get much better?

Like last time with Belén, Eloise doesn’t even appear to be looking at the rattle yet she somehow manages to grab it, clearly demonstrating it was her intent, not just luck.

Why is this so significant? In my book, this marks the beginning of all of the childhood motor skills development. She’s grabbing with intent now but soon she will be rolling over and crawling, walking, jumping, hop scotching…you get the picture.

*Do you want to know the trick to spending a very productive hour in the frame shop with a two-year-old and a two-month-old? Bring in the ringer! Thanks for your help Nana!